Primordial Heir: Nine Stars

Back at Nero’s location, he glanced at the leaderboard and noticed their score had surged by twenty points.

”Ah... so you baited me to kill four of them,” he murmured, a dry smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He wasn’t surprised—Khione had outplayed him. He had underestimated the ice-cold tactician, and she had exploited that with precision. A bitter lesson carved into pride.

”Tch... never again,” Nero muttered.

He dropped to a seated position and closed his eyes, drawing in a slow, steady breath. His muscles relaxed, and the aura of fire around him faded as he entered a meditative state. For the next few minutes, silence enveloped him. Within, he centered his prana, gathering it from every thread of his body and pulling it toward his core. His breathing synchronized with the subtle rhythm of the world around him. Heat pulsed in his veins like molten steel waiting to be forged.

Then, without warning, flames surged out from his back.

Crimson wings of fire unfurled, radiant and fierce, illuminating the forest canopy around him with a warm, menacing glow. His eyes snapped open—burning, focused.

”Time to hunt.”

Nero’s Divine Sense expanded like a second heartbeat, flooding the surrounding forest in an invisible web of awareness. Every living creature, every faint movement, every heartbeat within two hundred meters flared in his perception. But he wasn’t looking for rabbits or birds.

He was looking for monsters.

For over half an hour, he swept through the dense underbrush and fog-draped paths, silent as a shadow. Then—three presences flared on the edge of his awareness, heavy and brutish. Orcs.

He landed silently atop a boulder overlooking a ravine, and there they were—hulking beasts, nearly eight feet tall, their muscles thick like corded rope beneath mottled green skin. Two of them wielded massive rusted cleavers, the third carried a crude war hammer the size of a tree stump.

Nero didn’t hesitate.

With a surge of fire, he launched himself downward, a streak of burning red.

The orcs roared in surprise as he crashed into the center of their group like a meteor, the shockwave scattering dust and ash. The ground beneath cracked from the force of his landing.

”Burn.”

He whispered the word like a curse.

His sword ignited, flames wreathing the blade like a dragon’s breath. He swung in a wide arc, forcing the orcs back with a wave of scorching heat. One charged recklessly, and Nero sidestepped with grace, slicing through the orc’s side. The blade met flesh—then bone—and cleaved cleanly through with a hiss of vaporized blood.

The orc fell, half of its torso charred to cinders.

The other two howled in fury, attacking from both flanks.

Nero ducked beneath a sweeping cleaver and brought his sword up just in time to catch the war hammer with a ringing clash that sent sparks flying. The force of the impact sent him skidding backward, boots digging furrows into the dirt.

”They’re stronger than I thought,” he muttered.

He raised a hand, and a fiery sigil appeared above his palm. It rotated rapidly before bursting into a sphere of flame. With a flick, he hurled it at the hammer-wielding orc. It exploded on impact—an infernal blossom of heat and pressure that consumed the beast in a roar of fire. When the smoke cleared, only a scorched corpse remained, steaming and silent.

The final orc roared and charged in blind rage.

Nero met the attack head-on, their weapons clashing like thunder. Sparks danced with each strike. The orc’s brute strength forced Nero on the defensive, but his movements remained fluid—more dance than duel. Then, spotting an opening, Nero reversed his grip, let his body rotate with the momentum, and drove his blade upward under the orc’s arm.

Siii~

The fire-infused steel pierced through muscle and ribcage, erupting in flames from the creature’s back.

The orc gave a strangled grunt—and collapsed.

Nero stepped back, breath calm but intense, his body steaming from the residual heat. Around him, the forest smoldered, tree bark blackened from the battle. He flicked the blood off his blade and sheathed it.

Another fifteen points earned. Currently they have 346 points.

But he wasn’t done.

•••

Meanwhile, on Khione’s side of the forest...

Three orcs lumbered through the clearing below—slow, heavy-footed beasts unaware they were being watched. Their grunts echoed faintly, mingling with the creak of old trees and the hush of drifting snow. One of them paused to sniff the air, but the cold dulled its senses.

Far above, Khione hovered.

Motionless. Silent.

Her crystal wings shimmered with a soft, icy iridescence, refracting sunlight into ghostly fragments. The air around her was already shifting—growing still, brittle with cold.

She didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe.

She observed.

Three targets. Spread out just enough to avoid a single strike. Sloppy formation. Unaware.

Efficient elimination required individual precision.

She drew in a breath, more out of habit than need, and lifted her wand—a glimmering rod of carved crystal, humming faintly with power.

Then—she vanished.

A thin veil of refracted air cloaked her form, blending her with the sky.

From that invisible perch, she raised one hand and whispered to the wind.

Prana gathered. Cold pulsed.

The Law of Ice stirred.

Below, the first orc waded through knee-high brush, a rusted axe slung across its back. It sniffed again, uneasy.

A chill touched its skin.

Too late.

CRACK.

Frost exploded around its feet, racing up its legs like hungry vines. Ice clamped around its joints, then chest, then throat. It tried to roar, but its breath turned to mist—and froze in its lungs.

With a final snap, the orc turned to a crystalline statue, frozen mid-step, its eyes wide with fading awareness.

Khione was already moving.

She descended like snowfall—silent, beautiful, inevitable.

The second orc turned its head. Noticing movement? A flicker of cold wind? It reached for its weapon.

Khione’s wand flicked.

In a blink, razor-sharp ice coalesced in the air beside her hand, forming three narrow spears—transparent, humming with violent energy.

Tch-shk! Tch-shk! Tch-shk!

The spears launched one after the other, silent and deadly.

The first struck the orc in the knee, pinning it in place. The second shattered against its shoulder, locking its arm in place with a bloom of frost.

The third—

Straight through the throat.

The orc gurgled. Then stilled. A fine mist of frost curled from its wound. Ice crept over its skin, locking the corpse in a half-kneeling position.

Another statue. Another monument to inevitability.

The last orc saw everything. It roared, backing away, eyes darting through the trees.

Then—it ran.

Clumsy. Loud.

Desperate.

Khione let it.

She ascended, wings flaring softly. Snow whirled in her wake.

She gave chase not with speed—but inevitability.

High above the fleeing orc, she channeled prana into the sky itself. The temperature plummeted. Moisture twisted into flakes. Then—

A blizzard spiral erupted.

A controlled storm, descending in a narrow column over the fleeing creature. Wind screamed. Snow blinded. Ice hammered down like a curtain of needles.

The orc stumbled, blinded. Its skin turned purple from the sudden drop in temperature. Its breath came in ragged gasps—each one freezing on its lips.

Then—

Khione dropped.

A meteor of silence and frost.

She landed just behind the creature.

No hesitation.

She formed an ice dagger mid-fall and, with a single reverse grip, drove it into the base of the orc’s spine.

The scream never came.

The dagger detonated internally—sending shards of pure cold through the orc’s torso.

Its muscles locked. Its blood froze mid-flow.

And with one last exhale of frost—

It collapsed, frozen from the inside out.